A Beautiful Curse
by smilecandyxo23
Summary: A one-shot on Fleur Delacour the night Bill Weasley is attacked.


Fleur stared at her reflection in the mirror, unblinkingly. If someone should intrude open this scene, they would credit themselves with thinking that it was the blonde's favorite pastime when, in fact, Fleur avoided mirrors as a rule.

Today was different though. Bill lay in the bed behind her, fast asleep. His face, newly ravaged by scars, was twisted and lacking in its former handsome traits. With his eyes closed, Fleur could hardly believe that she was marrying this man. Nothing was familiar to her in his appearance, now that his wounds were fresh and altered his face. Only his opened eyes held the beauty he had once worn.

She gazed at the ethereal planes of her face, the smooth angles and unblemished skin, as white and cold as a newly fallen blanket of snow. Cascades of blonde hair, tinted with silver starlight, fell about her shoulders. Her lips were in their usual soft pout, pink and innocent in their rosebud-like appearance.

But it was her eyes that scared her. Unusually deep and full of emotions, they were out of place in the angelic vision she created. The blue irises had darkened from the powder blue light and now stood for all she had yearned to be but had thought herself entirely unable to become.

Intelligence, too easily abandoned and forgotten for the sake of beauty, glimmered within the young French woman. It was a newly-lit candle or perhaps it had always been burning but had been shadowed by the eclipsing power of her outward appearance.

Strength likened to that of an impenetrable stonewall guarded her darkest secrets and sealed off contact from others.

The power of the one used to holding sway over others by the merest touch of her gaze was belied in her stance. But gone was the vanity, founded within from a young, unripened age, when she was first called perfect. Since then, Fleur had longed assumed herself to be so: to embody perfection.

Grace, beauty and power lay at her fingertips and Beauxbatons had ever been held in her gentle but potent grasp.

Legions of girls, soaked with envy and brainwashed by her terrific beauty, had followed Fleur. The eyes of older min lingered upon her body and the gazes of those nearer to her in age were reverent and saturated with lust.

She had giggled at their follies, taken what she now saw as a sadistic pleasure in ruining the fancies of misguided boys and enjoyed breaking the hearts of others. For long years she had been content with solely that. But somewhere along the way, the silly games of society tired her and boredom had taken root within the heart she felt was empty.

Fleur began to pine for the one thing she would never be able to have: an average life. The beauty that had once seemed a blessing was a curse, the Veela blood burned within and she was ashamed of her race, her heritage. By all accounts, she should not have been created. She was of two species and a mutation. She felt the knowledge of the world she had crumbling about her and fell into despair.

No one would ever see her as she truly was. They would see hair as if made of silk, creamy skin, delicate grace and an endearing, if vain and proud, personality. They were blinded to her excelling grades and did not stop to think that it wasn't her looks but her brain that had achieved them. Her skill with Charms and Defense Against the Dark Arts was just another asset, natural talent they believed. They didn't know the hours she spent perfecting the spells until they were just right. They didn't know and they never would.

And so, Fleur took a strange pleasure in her failure as a champion of the Triwizard Tournament. Finally, something she had not excelled at above all others. But the return to France only brought sympathies and reassuring from her smitten friends that the boy, Harry Potter, had been a cheat, the Grindylows solely out to get her and the points awarded a scam. For them, Fleur Delacour held no failure but only victory.

Her graduation from Beauxbatons led immediately to England, where she escaped and struggled to find a place in society with the help of no one. The English, too, fawned over her looks but the goblins at Gringotts just needed a sharp brain and never noticed her beauty. A small number of humans saw through her and one of those lay upon the bed behind her.

Bill had never denied the fascination of her appearance but he moved beyond her social graces and to that which she hadn't believed herself to have: intelligence, power, might… a voice of her own.

Love, a true, burning kind, not the diffused, muted sense of attachment she had felt before Bill came along, took over her world and tinted it an amorous red. At last, she had attained something—someone—worth attaining. She was joyful in the notion that she had found a man that loved her for the ferocity of her quick temper, the strangely naïve aspect of her personality, and the mulish stubborn streak miles wide.

But her happiness with the dream of a future including Bill was shaken to the root of its foundations during the fateful summer she spent in the company of the Weasley family.

The girl, Ginny, was pleasant enough in appearance: she hardly burned the eyes and was indeed considered to be quite attractive among the English (whose standards were not as high as the French in terms of beauty.)

The brother, Ron, was a foolish, love-struck youth: she had often met his kind before and he did not trouble her. Much.

The family-friend, Hermione Granger, was an intelligent, clever girl with a mind quick as a lightning strike and she was often declared to be the brightest witch of her age: so yes, Fleur envied her to some extent but not nearly enough to warrant the cold behavior Hermione had shown her.

But it was the mother, Molly, who brutally opened Fleur's eyes to the truth of the world and her standing in it. Molly thought her dim, flighty, flamboyant: all too secure in the vision of her perfection.

Like many others before her, Molly saw only Fleur's beauty and her thin outer shell of vain humor and conceited sarcasm. But unlike the legions of blind before her, Molly pierced Fleur's heart.

The older woman was envious of Bill's love for her, was angry that her daughter was not as pretty, and was positive in the notion that Fleur was not good enough—was not _bright_ enough—for her eldest son.

The stress of the war and looming wedding date spurred on futile arguments and tense hostility between the two women. Backed by the temperxmental Ginny and genius Hermione, Molly stood firm against Fleur. Until now… until the night followed that horrendous battle at Hogwarts and Albus Dumbledore's crushing death.

Turning away from the mirror, Fleur sucked in a whistling, sharp breath as her gaze fell upon the broken form of her beloved. Angelic tears, gliding as if on chariots of sparkling diamonds, whispered down her smooth cheeks and dripped onto the bed.

She was ashamed, embarrassed and most of all heavily saddened that it had taken Bill's near death to realize she truly was not perfect. And that she was happy in the realization of her flawed perfection.


End file.
